Bedbug Scare Causes Evacuation of NYU’s Hospital for Joint Disease

A treatment area on the 10th floor of the NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases was shut down on Wednesday after a patient reported spotting a bed bug, according to the New York Daily News.

The woman’s critter sighting forced the evacuation of the hospital’s infusion center. Hospital employees did a thorough search of the area and did not find any bedbugs, but the treatment area was evacuated and staff was sent home for the day as a precaution.

“A patient reported seeing a bedbug on another patient at our infusion center, but none was found,” a hospital spokeswoman said to the News on Tuesday.

“We closed the center and treated the area. No bedbugs were found and the center is reopened.”

The infusion center treats patients with rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and some with dermatological issues.

Longtime rheumatoid arthritis sufferer Katherine McFarlane, 30, relies on her four-hour infusions to be able to function pain free and was furious when the hospital called her two hours prior to her 1:30 appointment to tell her that she would have to reschedule due to “logistics” issues, the News reported.

“An hour later I was told they were ‘overbooked.’ Then they told me it was a ‘patient health problem,'” McFarlane, a midtown lawyer, told the paper.

“After five phone calls and me saying I was an attorney, someone … finally told me it was about bedbugs.”

{DNAInfo/Matzav.com}